Friday morning. I commute to work in a packed carriage of Paris' metro, line 8. As I step off at Ecole Militaire I spot a woman doing the same thing. She carries a baby on her back using a backpack-like device which is actually a real chair. Young Mr. or Mrs. Chairperson is having a peaceful and comfortable nap. I am amazed by the invention, as it looks solid enough to isolate the baby from the dangers inherent to this city’s commuting experience. Especially from a recurring one in the form of the impact of a heavy purse or small briefcase on one’s chest –why bother holding it on your hand? Why depriving people from appreciating it? People spend fortunes in purses! It has to show!-.
The thing is that I immediately think about Africa. The many women, always women, that I have seen doing the same thing but using a much simpler blanket-like big piece of fabric. You can often see women doing so while also carrying in their hands big bags with food or other items, sometimes even carrying something on their heads.
It feels like worlds apart. Thinking just about the devices, one is a world of opulence, where babies are the modus vivendi of a whole industry that involves textiles, plastics –and hence rubber and latex but also, amongst other materials, oil-, as well as transportation, marketing, sales… This means lots of jobs all along the production and distribution chain. Meanwhile there is another world, certainly simpler and rather more modest. Livestock, natural fabrics, little marketing but the markets themselves; light industry even if too often the bulk of the fabrics is imported –from Europe for centuries, from the big Asia more recently. Silk is another story-. Even if these jobs I mentioned might be spread around the globe, I cannot prevent myself from thinking about the different carbon footprints of the ones and the others. I know the question is far from being simple as I suspect that a radical transformation of our lifestyles is unlikely, at least as long as there is still plenty of oil available. Yet I grow increasingly convinced that we need a simpler life.
Suddenly I remember about that funny story about the space race. Apparently while the NASA invested (or simply spent, or wasted, depending on your point of view) a large amount of money developing a pen that could write in a situation of no gravity, the Soviets went to space with pencils. Further proof that life can be simpler, even in space. This is not an apology of real socialism, as Marxism is as production-oriented as capitalism and its models did not factor in production’s impacts on the environment. That was just a funny example.
Several books could be written just by comparing the two examples and analyzing the implications of its various ramifications. For tonight I will only add that to me this is yet another proof that we have much to learn from Africa, despite the poverty, the conflicts and the inequality so real but also so stereotyped in our latitudes. Yet I do not think we are ready to listen. In this part of the world, too often, even if we listen we hardly hear anything but ourselves.
PS: for anyone interested in further information about the whole issue of carrying babies, you may wish to examine this website I found while doing some minimal research to write this piece: it is the French “Association pour la promotion du portage”. Long life to civil society!
The thing is that I immediately think about Africa. The many women, always women, that I have seen doing the same thing but using a much simpler blanket-like big piece of fabric. You can often see women doing so while also carrying in their hands big bags with food or other items, sometimes even carrying something on their heads.
It feels like worlds apart. Thinking just about the devices, one is a world of opulence, where babies are the modus vivendi of a whole industry that involves textiles, plastics –and hence rubber and latex but also, amongst other materials, oil-, as well as transportation, marketing, sales… This means lots of jobs all along the production and distribution chain. Meanwhile there is another world, certainly simpler and rather more modest. Livestock, natural fabrics, little marketing but the markets themselves; light industry even if too often the bulk of the fabrics is imported –from Europe for centuries, from the big Asia more recently. Silk is another story-. Even if these jobs I mentioned might be spread around the globe, I cannot prevent myself from thinking about the different carbon footprints of the ones and the others. I know the question is far from being simple as I suspect that a radical transformation of our lifestyles is unlikely, at least as long as there is still plenty of oil available. Yet I grow increasingly convinced that we need a simpler life.
Suddenly I remember about that funny story about the space race. Apparently while the NASA invested (or simply spent, or wasted, depending on your point of view) a large amount of money developing a pen that could write in a situation of no gravity, the Soviets went to space with pencils. Further proof that life can be simpler, even in space. This is not an apology of real socialism, as Marxism is as production-oriented as capitalism and its models did not factor in production’s impacts on the environment. That was just a funny example.
Several books could be written just by comparing the two examples and analyzing the implications of its various ramifications. For tonight I will only add that to me this is yet another proof that we have much to learn from Africa, despite the poverty, the conflicts and the inequality so real but also so stereotyped in our latitudes. Yet I do not think we are ready to listen. In this part of the world, too often, even if we listen we hardly hear anything but ourselves.
PS: for anyone interested in further information about the whole issue of carrying babies, you may wish to examine this website I found while doing some minimal research to write this piece: it is the French “Association pour la promotion du portage”. Long life to civil society!
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